A Visit to the Training Centre
by FireIceAir
Summary: Gale goes to the Training Centre after the deaths of Presidents Snow and Coin to see Katniss for the last time, causing him to reflect on their relationship and what is the right thing to do. Oneshot.


The Training Centre was a place he had hoped he would never have to enter. Now, as he waited impatiently as the lift carried him up to the top floor, there was no fear, no anticipation of imminent death. The Capitol had fallen, the games ended. The districts had won. Yet, the place had an eerie feeling to it now that it was empty. Shadows of young children from years past that had once walked along the corridor he was now striding through flitted in and out of the corner of his eye.

The door creaked as the guard opened it for him. The room, almost empty like the rest of the building, only had a few pieces of furniture. The closet doors were open, showing off a bare hollow with dust gathering on the bottom, and the bed was stripped down to the mattress. She lay on the bed, not stirring, letting the dust collect on her too, the picture of desolation and sorrow. Buried under memories, many of them lived in this room. Memories of fear and anger and sadness, for herself, her family, her people. He had never been in this room. She had been in here enough to last a lifetime.

He hadn't been allowed to see her until now. She was sick, they said. Not eating, not taking medication. Doctors were at a loss, but he knew what grief could do to a person. Her mother had travelled that road. Now he was the one who had driven her down it.

She had changed so much since he had first met her in the woods: that shy twelve year old with talent and a family to feed. She had transformed into a woman and on fire or not, he had always thought she would be _his_. Until he had lost her forever. Now, all he could do was extract himself from the picture as smoothly as possible. And even though his head had screamed at him not to come, his eyes had to see her for on last time. It pained him to see she looked thinner than she did back home when she was at her hungriest.

There was no reaction to his entrance. Her eyes stayed shut, her fingers still, her breathing normal. The familiar greeting "Hey, Catnip," only caused her breathing to hitch once in her throat before the pace returned to normal. She stayed still on the bed, as impassive as ever, either still angry or too weak to acknowledge him, he didn't know.

Apologies were useless, he did know that. How do you say sorry to someone for taking away their only reason to survive for the last four, five years?

That little blonde haired girl had been his responsibility. That was the only thing he had going for him, the fact that he looked after her family. Katniss valued them more than her own life, and now that she had lost them, there was no reason for her to keep going in her mind. She didn't realise how many people needed her to, like her mother, him and her baker boy, Peeta.

He feels his forehead crease, as it always did when he was forced to think of the other half of the 'star-crossed lovers from District 12'. He was only starting to get his memory back with treatment, but he still made no move to visit his fellow tribute. There were days when he woke up thinking she was the most beautiful thing in the world, others when it was all the doctors could do to restrain him from finding and killing her. But Peeta was gradually getting better, and Gale knew that there was no hope for him while the baker boy was still alive. Katniss would wait for him forever.

He sat down on the side of the bed, and stroked a piece of hair from her face. Her even breathing told him that she had fallen unconscious into sleep, exhausted and weak from lack of nutrition. Remembering the night he had been whipped and was lying on the table, he ran his callused fingers over Katniss' features – around her eyes, over her high cheekbones, across her soft lips – in an attempt to memorize her features. His departure for District 2 was the next day, and if she was lucky, this would be the last time they would be together.

Again and again he had changed his mind – he would stay with her, and she would see that they belonged together, no matter what had happened in the war – only to be crushed in waves of guilt and memories when he knew that whatever happened, their destinies had only run parallel, crossed paths, but never entwined. Katniss was lost to him.

His time was nearly up. Leaning over lower to study her features even closer, he catches a whiff of a scent, Katniss' scent, which sent a dull pain through his chest. Tall pine trees and branches and green fill his mind's eye, and it takes a while for him to shake the image.

"I hope you find your voice, my Mockingjay."

And suddenly he is standing up, and his feet are pulling him towards the door as his heart screams no. But the door is open, and he just has the time to say "bye, Katniss," before the guard closes it and escorts him out of the building. Katniss is closed off to him forever.

Soon after he arrives in District 2 he hears that she and the baker boy have returned to District 12. Dr. Aurelius, the man responsible for treating them, says that he talks to Katniss everyday, but he doubts that. Katniss is too damaged, he saw in the training centre, to be accepting help. He knows she's still probably a broken little bird, and he wants more than anything to help, but he has realised that he's not good for her. She needs peaceful, and good, and they both know he is neither of those things. So he doesn't try contacting her, and avoids having anything to do with her. It's better that way, he tells himself. For her.

Many years later, he hears that she settled down with the baker boy, and that she already has a child, and a second one on the way. Surprised, because she always said that she would never have kids, he resents the baker a little more than he did before. He knows he made the right choice, leaving her to be with him. The children prove that. He knows he would have just tied her down. Although he knows this, he pines for the family he might have had, that they might have had. But no matter how much it hurt him, he's happy that he did the right thing, and let his Mockingjay fly away.


End file.
